Masks
by BloodiedCoreOfHope
Summary: Shinichi Kudo- Conan Edogawa. He has a lot of masks, and sometimes he notices them. Sometimes other people notice him as well, but they never really say anything when they do. Not even his name.


On some days, Conan Edogawa was a mask. On those days, he moved through the motions of life, holding back the raging emotions of someone so innately frustrated with his frustration that their response to it had become to plaster a faux smile on and be someone different. On those days, he would interact more enthusiastically than usual, he would be full of such undeniably childish energy that when he got home it was expected for him to just retreat to his room and rest. He didn't always rest though, sometimes he would just lie down and stare up at the too far away ceiling with thoughts racing around as fast as he does. On those days, he was trying to outrun his situation, half literally.

Even so, on occasions he really did have fun being Conan. Being Conan meant being taken to football practices, meant getting free ice cream for being such a cute little boy, meant not being told off for acting less mature than a police inspector. It meant that he could just _relax_. It was hard to do, and never lasted, but relaxing as Conan meant just giving up on his pride for a little while. It meant that hey, here's something fun to do, do you want to do it? No, you're not too old to do it- not now, anyway, so go and enjoy yourself!

Every now and again he would have to be Shinichi as Conan. Not Conan having fun and being kid-like, not Shinichi trapped in a kids body and being immensely frustrated, but Shinichi as Conan. Being Shinichi as Conan meant being the smart kid- the little boy with eyes bright with knowledge just wandering around the crime scene happy as a… Happy child. He led the police around by the nose, pointing out clues and suspects with just the right amount of innocent kid vibes that no-one suspected a thing.

When it came down to it- he didn't really know who he was anymore. When he became Shinichi Kudo- high school detective extraordinaire, he could talk to people and be respected and treated like a sentient being. He could see out of higher windows and didn't get neck-ache from looking people in the eye, and the police let him do his deductions as normal. When he was Shinichi- it always felt like a dream. He had a time limit to how long he could be in that wonderful golden haze where everything was how it was supposed to be, until the cure stopped being effective enough to hold the poison at bay and he was boiled and crushed and twisted in a few short minutes and then he was Conan again.

He could be Conan, the mask for Shinichi Kudo to hide behind. He could be Conan, the fun loving little mystery geek with a football obsession. He could be Shinichi Kudo, just pint sized and forced to lead everyone around like they were cattle with a penchant for getting lost. He could be Shinichi Kudo, saviour of the Japanese police force who was the best detective in Tokyo and who had a countdown to being erased with only Conan left.

Sometimes, he didn't want to be anything. He wanted to just lose himself in the endless whorls of the ceiling, he wanted to simply be himself. Himself didn't have to be defined- it just was. It was going to soccer matches and cheering for his team, it was being terrible at singing, it was having thoughts swirling around in a rush to solve whatever problems he was presented with. Sometimes it wasn't even that.

Once upon a time, he went to a fortune teller with Ran. They had read Rans fortune, and come out with some spiel about having faith and carrying on against the odds. He could tell quite simply that she was just saying what Ran wanted to hear, but he didn't spoil it for Ran so of course he stayed quite. Then, the woman, dressed in her reddish shawl and dripping with dark beads, turned and said, "Ah, who's this little one?"

She was talking about him, of course. Ran replied happily, still holding his hand in preparation to leave, "Oh, this is Conan he's-" The woman didn't let her finish, but gave him a wry look over, in his oversized glasses and little suit, with a tone far too frank for someone who had been spinning comfort from a girls palm moments earlier, she said, "Wearing way too many masks, that's for sure."

Ran was left stunned, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't as well. Ran didn't reply, instead choosing to make her way out of the stall and head round the rest of the market. She was fairly quiet for the rest of the trip, but her little companion didn't say anything. He was too busy thinking.

He never did get an answer as to who the fortune teller was since she left town the next day. There were others, of course. People who would stop in the street, or ask after that curious little boy who had stopped by with Ran. They always avoided using names, strangely enough. Perhaps they though that names would give him a form, mean that the boy who was wise beyond his years, the boy who stumbled over murders and crime almost daily, the boy who chased culprits until he got a confession… It would mean admitting he was real, perhaps.

Admitting that something so odd exists is difficult, and most people are blessed enough to not be able to see the strange things about this world. The people who can see the odd differences present in some people, some events, maybe for them it's just easier to pretend it really isn't what they've noticed. Giving a name to it would mean admitting that it had a segment of existence claimed for its strange world, after all.

 **A.N**

 **And this is why I don't listen to ideas that pop in my head all that often. Well, I hope whoever troubled themselves enough to view this... Piece of writing, enjoyed it. Thinking that occasionally normal people take a step back and look at the world they're in (an anime) brings this sort of dark introspective stuff to the surface. Blah.**

 **The last segment was written listening to Butterfly Core, the 37** **th** **opening to Detective Conan. Its quite a powerful tune- give it a listen when you have time.**

 **Review if you'd like.**

 **BCoH signing out.**


End file.
